The purpose of this research is to gain information on the factors which determine the conformations of biological molecules and to develop the theory of the phenomena which depend on conformations. The effect of conformational induction in block copolypeptides will be used to study the nature of the interactions between amino acid side chains. Various optical as well as nuclear magnetic resonance techniques will be used. The theory of molecular optical properties will be developed on the basis of various polarizability models, with particular attention to those properties, such as optical rotation, which are dependent on molecular conformation.